Awful weather - typical Brits talk

twopenny

Oh heck. The last book the same but I've given it back.
I meant to type some phrases because they were funny and clever.
This one is Milly Johnson. Each chapter has an excerpt from the Daily Trumpet where they are constantly making hillarious mistakes and having to apologise. 
"An unfortunate error appeared in the Diet & Health supplement of the Daily Trumpet on 29th March in which we reported that Mrs Janet Wilkins had lost 4 stone by farting for two full days during the week for a whole year. We did of course mean fasting" 

Not your sort of read I guessing but anything light for me at the mo.
Hope it's all right to quote as it's attributed.

Ot, it's still chilly out there. I'll be out gardening if it warms up.
I have to start the tan off early as I'm fair skinned but like beach swimming and being out in the garden so I toughen it up slowly.

Farway I missed your post. You're early today 
Yes, I had a butterfly in the garden yesterday. Large Tortoiseshell. I couldn't be quick enough to get the camera.

YoungBlueEyes

Does sound like my thing, I’ll have a look for The Daily Trumpet  

Here’s an example of the free dibbers you get in B+Q compost. It’s serving me rightly for more toms and some sunflowers. Gardening glove for scale - 

Farway

twopenny said:

Ot, it's still chilly out there. I'll be out gardening if it warms up.
I have to start the tan off early as I'm fair skinned but like beach swimming and being out in the garden so I toughen it up slowly.

Farway I missed your post. You're early today 
Yes, I had a butterfly in the garden yesterday. Large Tortoiseshell. I couldn't be quick enough to get the camera.

First bold, a proper gardener then, needs hardening off first, Boom Boom!

I was up & about early, and couldn't get back to sleep. Probably my climbing beans screaming for help and wanting to come back indoors.

Warmed up in the sun, but cold if not. 

Sowed the cosmos, it's a fresh packet, so not much else I can do. 

No free mini dibbers in my Levington, but seems to be most of the stables straw still decomposing. Luckily, cosmos seeds are quite chunky, so not falling between the cracks.

My Muscat grape vine has decided life is better than the alternative, it was on life support having been ravaged last year, as per instructions, by vine weevils

Now I have to find a weevil free home for it, currently in a hospital pot

ArbitraryRandom

If you'll excuse a silly question, something I've wondered about for a while - for those complaining about peat free compost... you can still get it (online at least) so are you not buying it for ethics or price or some other reason? 

(To be clear, I've not been buying it - but mostly because I've never used it so don't get the fuss, plus I'm after the cheapest option to fill my beds and it seems to have a bit of a price premium) 

twopenny

It's the old story Abs. They were supposed to be making it better but once the law/trend set in and there was no choice then they do any old stuff.
Happens with so much now. 
I agree with peat free but they need a bomb up them to make a good alternative.

Farway, funny   

Dustyevsky

twopenny said:

I agree with peat free but they need a bomb up them to make a good alternative.

There ought to be some sort of standard to meet.

Luckily, our soil here is fine and sandy, so once through a sieve and into the old industrial microwave for sterilising, it can bulk-out any kind of compost I care to make. Don't think I'll run out!

However, his year, I've been using soil-free mixes, just to see if I can get my head around them better. Hasn't gone terribly, but a few items have failed. Fine seed, surface sown, hasn't come up, or come up well.

Not cold today, but we lost the sunshine around lunchtime, and a jumper went on around 17.00. It's been all-action here, preparing for the digger. I'm crocked, but SiL has barbecue going!

It may still be cool, but as the oaks begin to gain their leaves, it's obviously not winter any more. So... I'm going to slip in a quick piccie of Rosemoor's Winter Garden, as it's in Yellow Sticker territory! At present, half of that garden has been laid waste for a complete re-vamp, but this is the half that remains untouched.

twopenny

Aw I wish my winter garden looked like this. I did try.

A box border to the patio with box balls, thought it would look fine in the snow but the reality is that you can't see the garden for rain, dark and fog

I had the desire for lighting in the garden when I moved only to find the floodlights from 2 sports grounds and amazing street lights outside made that pointless.

However some sucess

The diddy Acer I bought from Morries has doubled in size and it's looking good and healthy...this is what I saw from my sofa

If anyone's wondering it's lit by a stick in the ground solar led for £2 and they last a long time. 4yrs I think for this.

the fern behind isn't showing so well and the bird bath used to be lit but now overgrown so I'll have to do some fiddling with the others.

Sun went in this afternoon and the wind dropped (because I put the washing out) so been out for a bright and cheerful walk on the moor. The gorse is stunning yellow and smells lovely.

greenbee

The bulk bags of compost/soil improver I've been getting from Rolawn have been MUCH better than the stuff in bags from the local garden centres and anything else I've had over the last couple of years. I've now had 4 bulk bags (and 3 of F&V topsoil) and everything seems happy in it so far. 

I accidentally bought 3 magnolias (a pink stellata, a bright pink one, and a grandiflora). The stellata is a reasonable size. The other two will take a few years to get going. I also bought two buddleias, which I want to put at the back of the garden (although as I'm looking at out it now I might change where I've put the pots ready for digging holes).

I saw a Holly Blue butterfly today - not the first time, but I wasn't sure whether it was a Holly Blue or Small Blue. This time it was on one of the hollies, which was a bit of a give away!.

The 6m raspberry bed is half done - cardboard down, pallets sawn up and enough wood located to edge it, eight barrows-ful of compost on top. Tomorrow I will sort out the bricks/lumps of concrete to support the edging and the level the compost currently in there - and then see how much more I can shift before work. I'd like to get all the raspberries in by Wednesday. I then have another pallet to saw up to create the last fruit bed and get the poor blackcurrant and gooseberry planted properly.

The iris sibirica have been relocated (they'll probably have to be moved in the autumn, but they're now where they can spend the summer and give us something to look at from the house. A couple of other irises that I was given have been planted, plus some dahlias. I remembered that I'd planted some daylilies. And I started dividing a pink geranium a neighbour gave me to use as ground cover. There's lots left, so as I dig over more of the borders (and remove roots and rotten stumps and weeds) I have something to put in. 

Hopefully I'll soon be able to spend some time in the greenhouse as the cosmos need pricking out, lots of stuff needs sowing, and more will need potting up soon. Plus I have a bin full of paper that needs tearing up for the hotbin... which is a great displacement activity and it can be done in the greenhouse when the sun is out but the wind is cold... like today. 

YoungBlueEyes

Peat-free compost Arb. I don't shop online so my selection is whatever the shop sells that I'm in at the time. I decided that it's probably all much of a muchness so, while I did buy a proper bag of JI 3 for the Ska, the rest of the time I just lift what I see. So atm I'm using B+Q cos we were in there that often while himself was painting the fence. Yes it's mental to rape the peat bogs so we can have nice tomatoes for a few weeks a year, but I do think there ought to be a sliding scale. Cheapo, middling, good, v good. If I was a scientist I'd be all on trying to replicate peat, you'd make a fortune. Also anti vine weevil something and anti slug something. Don't be charging silly money, pile it high and sell it cheap. I spose in the Venn diagram of life scientists and gardeners don't meet...

So if your Muscat keeps deciding to live Farway will you be making vino?   

Beautiful Winter Garden there Dusty. I wouldn't mind that here. I wonder how many people predominantly think of how to create a nice summer garden full of flowers rather than a whole year round garden. /me puts her hand up Must try harder. 

You've got lots of toughening up weather this week 2p, all the cold and rain's on this side, so you'll be ready for beach swimming soon enough. I'm really fair skinned too, so I get my tan in bottles - Costa Del Boots ( <--- that's Posh Friend's joke. You're a lovely colour, have you been away? Yep, to Costa Del Boots ) Your acer looks well eh, is apricot (?) doing any better..? 

Also, how's the calamondin...? 

Your posts make me feel idle gb, that's actual proper gardening Can I ask - people who are making beds, do they have a bum to them or are they basically 4 walls built in the ground itms? How do you stop the slugs and ants coming up through the normal soil is what I'm asking I guess... 

Raining here, marginally warmer than it has been though cos the wind's turned round, but not a great forecast all week. We've lost the lovely high pressure too, it's downhill these next few days  

-taff

Well, no more glorious weather today, rainy and brr but I am still going to tidy the neighbour who gave the me the hotbins verge, because it will look nice, and more importantly, fill some of my bed. My heart is quailing at spending eighty quid on a builders bag of compost so I'll see if I can get that down a bit. YBL, my beds have no bottom. When I make them, I put cardboard down to immediately suppress weeds, then cover with whatever I have, twigs [ logs in one this time because I had them], leaves, grass, compsot, shredded paper mixed in, whatever. I've also used my sisters small coal rather thanher taking it to the tip. I feel no shame lugging that from Wales to here ::) Ants like it dry which is why you usually find them under slabs, a raised or edged bed is usually too damp for them because despite the water draining to the lowest point, the mass of whatever makes it up stays damp [ usually] . Slugs like to lurk at the edges or out of the sun under pots, under buckets, etc until it's time for them to gather themselves and assault your carefully looked after plantage, , they will come whether you try to stop them or no, so learning to live with the mostly evil sods is what happens. Also, if there are any weeds that grow through the cardboard, most will give up before they have the energy to grow past the soil on top of them. Except bindweed, that sucker is indestructible, And mares tail.

Dusty, beautiful view, I'm with ybl for the winter interest. Now that I've lost my bay tree, I have no uprights in the back garden except a tiny apple tree and not much in the way of evergreen stuff [ except a holly tree growing between mine and next doors garage in eight inches of gap that neighter of us can reach.

greenbee, good god, that's a ton of work you're doing! I like your idea of being in the greenhouse doing tearing up, means you can look and pan but not touch enforced resting

arb, definitely not buying it because it's better that's for sure, but on the plus side, i expect it's making more people make their own compost, if only to mix some good stuff in it. I tried it when It first came out, big mistake, it was rough as old boots. It's better now but still not as good. I's difficult to work out what's what too, unless it scream peat free on the bag, sometimes it's just not clear whether it is or not. Getting a pallet of 15 packs of 40l RocketGro for 135 doesn't stack up against a bag from a local place at eighty. But you never know what you're going to get until you get it.